Bookings at Bristol serviced apartment firm Saco have risen by 55 per cent in six months.

The number of bookings grew from 5,564 in the period between May and October 2008 to 8,621 in the same period of this year, with Birmingham being the most popular location.

Jo Redman, sales and marketing director for Saco, said: "Since last year we have noticed an increased awareness of serviced apartments as an alternative accommodation choice to hotels, especially from the leisure market.

"As demand has increased we have developed our services to deal with it. We have taken on two more apartment buildings in Manchester and London and expanded the on site teams, which has in turn increased the number of staff working on business development and reservations.

"As well as physically increasing our presence we have expanded our online services. Our new website, which launched in December, is constantly being improved to simplify the booking process and create more opportunities to book online making Saco more accessible to every customer."

Saco's customer satisfaction survey for the same six-month period supports the company's recent success.

It said 96.9 per cent of guests said they would stay in a Saco apartment again and 95 per cent rated services across the board as excellent or good, from overall impressions of the apartments to the efficiency, knowledge and helpfulness of staff.

The growing popularity of serviced apartments was reflected in a report published in September by the Association of Serviced Apartment Providers (ASAP), which has identified a 60 per cent increase in the number of serviced apartments provided by their members in all major UK cities.

Serviced apartments provide guests with more space, privacy and flexibility than a hotel room and the ability to avoid the additional costs of hotel extras and expensive food bills with the option to cater for themselves in their own "home from home". Saco, founded by Lesley Freed, owns and operates serviced apartments in 13 cities across the UK and through its worldwide network, can offer more than 12,000 apartments in over 100 destinations across 35 countries.